Do you think Gen 2 would've been better if they included more access in Kanto?

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I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet. The thing that disappointed me most about Kanto: that building in Vermillion City whose foundation was being laid in pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow. . If we're playing the "time has passed" card, why not make it so that construction is finished in this game and there is a new interesting building to explore.

I hate how it's like "yeah I laid the foundation but didn't have enough money." It feels like a cheap and lazy cop-out. While I was playing red/blue/yellow I used to wonder what the building would be like and it just feels disappointing that they didn't do anything with it.

That's bothered me too.. But I totally forgot about it until you brought it up! Kudos to you.

Definitely. They nerfed Kanto heavily in GSC, and it felt very empty and very boring. I do like what they did with it later in HGSS, but I still think it's not really enough. Aside from what they already did in HGSS, this is what they should've done:

-Move around some of the Johto and Kanto pokemon so all Johto Pokemon can be found in Johto and some of the Kanto Pokemon are Kanto exclusive (move Electabuzz, Pikachu, Houndour, Slugma, Sneasel, Chansey, Clefairy, and Misdreavus to Johto and move Farfetch'd, Seel, Staryu, Mankey/Meowth, and Tangela to Kanto).
-Bring back Rt. 23 and put trainers there and in Victory Road.
-Reopen the other Underground Path and have both intersect in the middle so you can go in any direction underneath Saffron City (for instance, you can go from Rt. 5 to Rt. 8).
-Reopen Silph Co.
-Allow exploration of the new mausoleum in Lavender Town as a substitute for Pokemon Tower.
-Expand Mt. Moon (if I were to remake the area nowadays, I'd make the inside a giant crater shaped area kind of like Twist Mountain with access to the outside area on top, but they wouldn't have been able to do that back then).

Yes! thats exactly what im talking about. I was so excited at first went I saw Kanto in my Gold, yet to be dissapointed by half of it gone. Lol

I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet. The thing that disappointed me most about Kanto: that building in Vermillion City whose foundation was being laid in pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow. . If we're playing the "time has passed" card, why not make it so that construction is finished in this game and there is a new interesting building to explore.

I hate how it's like "yeah I laid the foundation but didn't have enough money." It feels like a cheap and lazy cop-out. While I was playing red/blue/yellow I used to wonder what the building would be like and it just feels disappointing that they didn't do anything with it.

Well I thought that was funny.

I think they were right to leave the RBY Legendaries out, it makes GSC's own ones better able to stand themselves, and makes it that bit more special if you do have Mewtwo and the birds in your Gold or Silver.

But I do think they could have added something to Kanto. Many of Johto's caves feel particularly sprawling, and if they're been trimmed a little there surely would have been the storage space available to add something in Kanto.

I know they pretty much did this in HG/SS, But do you think Gen 2 would've been more fun if they allowed you to catch Mewtwo, The Legendary birds, and gave you access to the underground path, Silph Co, etc.

Oh god yes, I was so disappointed when I couldn't catch Mewtwo (and the legendary birds) in Gold since I never played the RBY era. All the cool kids got Mewtwo in their RBY cartridges, and all I was left with were Ho-Oh, Lugia and the Legendary Beasts. I'm grateful to HeartGold for including these nixed features from GSC as they've made the experience so much better for me. The only negative thing I'd have to say is the lack of level progression in Kanto. I mean when I'm coming to Vermilion City with a team that's in their level 60s after stomping the Johto league, I'd expect wild Pokemon to be a bit more challenging instead of lvls 5-30.

Then again, we should be grateful that they learned from it for BW2 when Southern Unova is levels 50-60, making training a bit easier.

Sure, more access, more things to explore, more Pokemon available, is never a bad thing in my mind. If it adds on a few extra hours of gameplay then I am all for it.
But at the time when Gold and Silver came out, I remember beating the Johto Elite 4, credits rolling all that. And it returns me to the town and it's like oh let's go to Kanto now. My mind was blown, I thought that was the coolest thing ever, that I could go and defeat 8 more gyms. Then you tell me Blue is a gym leader and Red is this hardcore trainer who you have to travel to Mt. Moon to fight against. My 14 year old mind was like wow, this is the best game ever.

I don't know how anyone could complain about Kanto in RBY. Sure, it wasn't as expansive as it was in RBY, but that's why we had Johto. It's like saying FRLG was disappointing because there were only seven islands to visit after going through an entire region. No other game has given us two full regions to play through. It's easy to go back and criticize since HGSS, but at the time it was pretty remarkable that they were able to include as much as they did.

I don't think it really mattered. The landscape changed within those three years, so naturally, the locations of the Legendaries would change, security in places where Team Rocket took control of would've gone up, gang violence would've increased (okay yeah, it said battling on the sign, I think, but remember all of those biker goons from the first game?), et cetera. Obviously, there were going to be some places you wouldn't have been able to go to as Gold/Crystal.

It felt perfect to me, and it still does. Yeah, they made expansions for the remakes, which I thought were fine, but that was what I liked about Kanto in G/S/C, was that it changed a little bit, just like real-life places can change in just a few years. You can put blame on the cartridge space all you want, but real-life writes the... post-story plot. It still had that nostalgic feeling, of course, but it really did show us that even in the Pokémon world, the world every kid wanted to live in, everything changes (cha-anges!). That's why if they ever do make a game where you can go to other regions, I want to be able to see the notable changes, give it that more realistic feeling to it. You know?

Personally I felt like kanto was just there, they put no actual thought or story line into it and it kind of pissed me off. It didn't need to be the same as Y/R/B but some kind of follow up story to what was happening in jhoto, they made it like Giovanni was dead when in the anime he was still running rocket from behind the scenes, they could have done way more with it then what they did.

Of course, it would have been better if it had more access on Kanto. I disliked the wild Pokémon's levels, the puzzles were meh, and the levels of the Gym Leader's Pokémon were around 43 or so, which was good since the player completed Johto's main game with Level 40+ Pokémon. Battlng Red on Mt. Silver was the only good thing in my opinion. I know, the Game Boy Color was limited at the time, but they could've of made more access in HG/SS Kanto. But overall, I was still happy that the region was there.

Gold/Silver/Crystal have always been my favourite pokemon games. They had a lot of features for the time they were made, and I remember never getting tired of playing them years ago. Although yeah, I agree that Kanto was probably too easy, at least compared to Jotho. I personally would've liked to be able enter the Safari Zone like in RBY. Or some kind of Team Rocket event, like in RBY Kanto. Also, trainers and leaders were EXTREMELY easy, at least up to Blue's gym and the final battle with Red (come on, you could probably beat Blaine even right after beating the dragon-type gym leader in jotho). Otherwise GSC games were just fantastic, they had something special...

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Sure, more access, more things to explore, more Pokemon available, is never a bad thing in my mind. If it adds on a few extra hours of gameplay then I am all for it.
But at the time when Gold and Silver came out, I remember beating the Johto Elite 4, credits rolling all that. And it returns me to the town and it's like oh let's go to Kanto now. My mind was blown, I thought that was the coolest thing ever, that I could go and defeat 8 more gyms. Then you tell me Blue is a gym leader and Red is this hardcore trainer who you have to travel to Mt. Moon to fight against. My 14 year old mind was like wow, this is the best game ever.

^This (though I was around 6 or 7 when it came out but whatever)

At the time I thought it was kind of odd that Kanto was much shorter (and that Victory Road was EXTREMELY short), but I honestly didn't care at all because I got to explore Kanto once again.

Yes they should have, but the games just probably didn't have the memory back then. Remember, the games now have more data than the older ones. So I bet they wanted to, but they just didn't have the space in the memory to spare. So don't be so mad about it.

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